HB 231 — AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 11 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO RELEASE OF PERSONS ACCUSED OF CRIMES.

Summary

This bill requires transparency in the use of risk assessment instruments and requires empirical data that the instrument does not increase or magnify bias against any protected class.

Bill Text

• Bill Text View text Current pdf

AI-generated reading aid from the bill's amendatory text — verify against the official bill.

This bill mandates transparency and bias testing for risk assessment instruments used in pretrial release decisions.

• § 2102

  “Risk Assessment Instrument” is is a pretrial process that creates or scores particular factors in order to estimate a defendant’s level of risk to fail to appear in court, risk to commit a new crime, likelihood or predicted severity of future violence against the alleged victim of domestic or intimate partner violence, risk posed to the community, or any other measurement of pretrial success in order to make recommendations to bail or conditions of release based on such risk whether made on an individualized basis or based on a grid or schedule. → “Risk Assessment Instrument” is a pretrial process that creates or scores particular factors in order to estimate a defendant’s level of risk to fail to appear in court, risk to commit a new crime, likelihood or predicted severity of future violence against the alleged victim of domestic or intimate partner violence, risk posed to the community, or any other measurement of pretrial success in order to make recommendations to bail or conditions of release based on such risk whether made on an individualized basis or based on a grid or schedule.

  Clarifies the definition of a 'Risk Assessment Instrument' by correcting a typographical error.

• § 2104 (2)

  (a) All documents, data, records, and information used by the builder to build or validate the risk assessment instrument and ongoing documents, data, records, and written policies outlining the usage and validation of the risk assessment instrument shall be open to public inspection, auditing, and testing;

  Requires that all documentation related to the creation and validation of risk assessment instruments be publicly accessible.

• § 2104 (2)

  (b) A party to a criminal case wherein a court has considered, or an expert witness has relied upon, a risk assessment instrument shall be entitled to review all calculations and data used to calculate the defendant’s own risk score;

  Ensures defendants can review the calculations used in their risk assessments.

• § 2104 (2)

  (c) No builder or user of a risk assessment instrument may assert trade secret or other intellectual property protections in order to quash discovery of the materials described in paragraph (a) of this subsection in a criminal or civil case;

  Prevents claim of trade secrets to block access to risk assessment data in legal cases.

• § 2104 (2)

  (d) No risk assessment instrument shall be used, until testing for bias has been shown not to increase or magnify bias against a person in a protected class or classes as defined by an empirically recognized standard for testing for such bias, including but not limited to the error rate balance test.

  Mandates that risk assessment instruments must undergo bias testing before use.

Action History

1. June 03, 2021

   Introduced and Assigned to Judiciary Committee in House

Sponsors

• David L. Wilson · Cosponsor
• Daniel B. Short · Cosponsor
• Ruth Briggs King · Cosponsor
• Colin Bonini · Primary
• Stephen Smyk · Primary

Subjects